Published: Thursday, September 12, 2013 at 08:00 AM.

Even Vladimir Putin’s sham offer with ulterior motives is preferable to U.S. military strikes against a country embroiled in a civil war and which poses no threat to America. But let’s not pretend it’s anything more than what it is — and that it doesn’t create other potential long-term foreign policy problems for Obama and successive administrations.

Moscow has been Syria’s patron in the Middle East for decades, and has been defending President Bashar al-Assad against charges that he used chemical weapons against his own people. The Obama administration up until last week griped that Russia was running interference for Syria at the U.N. Putin did not suddenly have a crisis of conscience and decide to hold Assad accountable or embrace a humanitarian foreign policy.

Rather, he seized upon a flippant remark by Secretary of State John Kerry that conflict could be avoided if Assad simply gave up his chemical weapons. Hey, let’s talk about that, Putin said.

That gave Obama the opening he needed to announce Tuesday night that he wanted to postpone a vote in Congress on legislation that would authorize him to attack Syria — a vote the president was likely to lose. Obama has maintained he doesn’t need congressional approval and that he might attack Syria anyway, but that would create a political firestorm at home. For now, Obama doesn’t have to cross that Rubicon.

Hopefully, he never will.

But he painted himself into that corner with months of careless, confusing and contradictory statements. He dared Syria to cross a “red line,” and when it did he felt compelled to act without having first gained the support of Congress and the American people. His late attempts to justify military action on humanitarian grounds have failed to move public opinion his direction.

Even Vladimir Putin’s sham offer with ulterior motives is preferable to U.S. military strikes against a country embroiled in a civil war and which poses no threat to America. But let’s not pretend it’s anything more than what it is — and that it doesn’t create other potential long-term foreign policy problems for Obama and successive administrations.

Moscow has been Syria’s patron in the Middle East for decades, and has been defending President Bashar al-Assad against charges that he used chemical weapons against his own people. The Obama administration up until last week griped that Russia was running interference for Syria at the U.N. Putin did not suddenly have a crisis of conscience and decide to hold Assad accountable or embrace a humanitarian foreign policy.

Rather, he seized upon a flippant remark by Secretary of State John Kerry that conflict could be avoided if Assad simply gave up his chemical weapons. Hey, let’s talk about that, Putin said.

That gave Obama the opening he needed to announce Tuesday night that he wanted to postpone a vote in Congress on legislation that would authorize him to attack Syria — a vote the president was likely to lose. Obama has maintained he doesn’t need congressional approval and that he might attack Syria anyway, but that would create a political firestorm at home. For now, Obama doesn’t have to cross that Rubicon.

Hopefully, he never will.

But he painted himself into that corner with months of careless, confusing and contradictory statements. He dared Syria to cross a “red line,” and when it did he felt compelled to act without having first gained the support of Congress and the American people. His late attempts to justify military action on humanitarian grounds have failed to move public opinion his direction.

In his televised speech to the nation Tuesday night, the president argued that diplomacy was working “in part because of the credible threat of U.S. military action” — a sort of “I planned this all along.” But if that were true, then having a congressional authorization of force in his back pocket would bolster such efforts. Postponing the vote, however, shows a president who fears the outcome.

That can only embolden Syria and Russia to string out the process of constructing an international inspection regime to secure and destroy chemical weapons, which would be costly and complex to successfully carry out even under ideal conditions. It will require years of commitment.
It’s doubtful anyone has the patience for that.

For Obama, all he needs is for the problem to move to the back burner and simmer quietly, unnoticed. He will be loathe to turn up the heat and hold Russia and Syria accountable for dragging their feet or violating terms of an inspections agreement. Assad will have the space to continue brutally prosecuting the civil war, while Putin becomes more influential in the Middle East.

Avoiding entangling the United States in civil wars is good policy. But how you do that matters, too. It starts with not putting yourself in that position to begin with. Stumbling, fumbling and bumbling on the world stage invites other forms of trouble.

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